Chapter 41
During the first two days of my radio silence, messages from Renzo poured in: small details about his day, requests, pleas, demands to talk, and lastly, a few romantic notes. He missed me. He thought of me. Such and such reminded him of me.
I reread each message several times, warmth always creeping up my face, but responded to none. I couldn’t give in that easily. He’d learn nothing otherwise.
On the third day of my radio silence, after an ominous good-morning message stating he had the perfect way for me to forgive him, a preppy personal shopper arrived midway through breakfast. She had specific instructions to deliver ten thousand dollars’ worth of clothing that matched my desired style, with another ten grand in lingerie and formal wear.
Within ten minutes, the lady was out the door after a few rude comments about my shabby apartment and my choice of pajamas.
When Renzo messaged me back asking how much I enjoyed my new wardrobe, he got a middle finger emoji and nothing else.
A few hours later, an email arrived confirming payment in full for my upcoming third year of medical school, followed by a text from Renzo reminding me not to forget to register for classes.
While it was a nice thought, I was worried it might affect my merit scholarship for next year, so I spent the rest of the day making phone calls to the registrar’s office and the student financial services office.
On the fourth day, gifts began arriving between messages.
Bouquets, from red roses to tulips, orchids, and carnations—enough to fill a flower shop.
An hour later, it was boxes of chocolates.
Then gift baskets with edible fruit arrangements, an assortment of coffees, wine and salami, candy bars, bath products, alcohol, and more.
There were foreign food products I’d raved about in letters over the years, photos of places I’d written to him about that I wanted to visit, and gift cards to my favorite casual-style restaurants.
Poor Bee’s and my apartment was invaded, every inch of counter space and even some floor space overtaken by Renzo’s zealous purchasing.
Our neighbors happily took a couple of gift baskets off our hands, but the entire place nearly overflowed.
“I think it’s romantic,” Bee croaked.
“The boss has good taste, at least,” Ricco commented between bites of chocolate peanut brittle.
“Padrino refused to buy me this stuff,” Lou stated, sniffing a jar of lotion from one of those high-end stores Tore’s last girlfriend loved.
While Lou saw Tore as a brotherly figure, she liked teasing him with a mix-up of different nicknames over the years, the most recent being padrino.
“That gives bossman an A-plus in my book.”
“None of you are supposed to side with him.” I recapped the jar and set it back down on the crinkle-cut gold paper between the bath bombs and salts.
I stole a piece of peanut brittle from Ricco’s fingers.
“And Tore doesn’t want you spoiled. You don’t need lotion that costs a hundred fifty dollars a jar when a ten-dollar one does the same thing. ”
“So bitter,” Lou stated as the doorbell rang again. I groaned, hoping it was Tore to pick up the kids, not another delivery.
I stuck my tongue out at Lou. She made a crazed face back, and I couldn’t help but laugh. If only the world got to see more of her personality instead of the quiet, shut-in facade she put on.
When I opened the door, Vinny stood there. His arms were mercifully empty.
I looked around him. “Where’s Tore?”
“I came instead.”
“Well then, welcome to my humble abode, now known as the local gift shop.”
“The sarcasm is new,” Vinny said.
“Boyan, Uncle Vinny’s here,” I called out.
I pulled Vinny across the threshold by the arm, then shoved him through the small entrance hallway into the living room.
Even Mister Stoic wouldn’t be able to hold out on the ridiculousness that had become my living room.
The place smelled like a body products store, the mix of fragrances almost eye-watering.
“Holy shit,” he muttered.
I smirked with satisfaction. “Ye-p.”
Vinny pulled off his beret and scratched his head, his wavy hair disheveled compared to his regular look.
“He’s trying, at least.”
“You call this trying? This is an explosion of everything he could think of. It’s an—wait, y-you know about Renzo and me?”
He gave me that nonplussed look. Lou and Bee both shrugged.
Ricco held his hands up in surrender. “Not me. I didn’t say anything.”
My mouth went dry, and I licked my lips. “He told you?” If he told Vinny, out of everyone, then he really did want there to be an us.
“I figured it out. Neither of you was discreet that first morning, or in the office.”
“Oh.” My cheeks flamed as I ducked my head. “Tore doesn’t know?”
Vinny sifted through a gift basket that had an assortment of thriller movies. “He’s in denial. It’s the only logical explanation.”
“You on babysitting duty tonight then?”
“Hey,” Boyan called from his room down the hall. “I heard that. No babies here.”
“Don’t forget to pack up your construction sets,” I called back. “He’s building one of the ones with a motor inside. Lou, get your stuff. You can finish your nails when you get to Tore’s.”
With a groaned sigh only teenagers seemed to be able to manage, Lou slid off the barstool and chucked her makeup and nail products into her cosmetics bag.
“Any reason why you came instead of Tore?” I asked Vinny.
Vinny gestured to all the gift baskets. “You’d rather he see all this?”
“Renzo could’ve come.”
“You told him to stay away.”
“But he should know I actually want him to come.”
“Why?”
“It’d be a show of commitment.”
“You didn’t tell him that.”
“Of course I didn’t. That’d be giving him the answer. He has to figure it out on his own.”
“How do you expect him to know that? You can’t tell him the opposite of what you want.”
“Everyone knows when a woman says she’s fine, she’s never fine,” Lou said, zipping up her travel bag.
“Exactly,” I added. “It’s the same thing. We women want to know that our guys know us. That they can figure out the issue without being instructed or told.”
“That’s…” His brows furrowed. “Very unintuitive. Anzy, look, men are straightforward. You tell us what you want, we make it happen. You tell us what you don’t want, we avoid the shit out of it. End of story.”
“Well, I told him not to message me, but he’s been doing that just fine, which means he didn’t show up because he didn’t want to.”
His cheeks puffed out, then slowly deflated.
“Whatever,” I said. “I don’t have time for this argument.” I unhooked my keys from the wall rack and grabbed my purse. “I’m meeting friends at the café a block over. Bee’ll help you lock up.”
“Which friends?” Vinny asked, pulling out his phone.
“None of your business,” I singsonged.
With an air kiss to Bee and kisses goodbye to both Boyan and Lou after promising to meet up for breakfast at Tore’s in the morning, I left my apartment with an odd sense of dejection.
After four days of no contact, I had really hoped he’d feel the need to be with me enough to make a move.
Instead, he buried me under piles of materialistic items. Maybe emotional closeness wasn’t something he needed or wanted after being behind bars so long.
Joseph and Marc, close friends from my first two years of medical school, were already seated in the café by the time I arrived, gulping down their mochas and macchiatos with gusto.
Unlike Renzo, who wore his aura of violence like a badge of honor, Joseph and Marc were the good guy, wholesome types raised on the importance of good friendships, fun, and working hard for an honest living.
What mattered most to them was getting their degrees and into the best residency programs possible.
They didn’t worry about who might attack them or if their actions might send them to jail.
They weren’t restrained by age differences or adoptive relationships.
Their worries were small. Maybe that was what I liked best about spending time with them.
I sipped on my ginger spice latte, watching them gesture animatedly through their conversation about recent roster changes in the upcoming NHL season, and smiled.
Marc had that typical Clark Kent bearing about him—good-looking even with a comb-over and glasses, and gifted with the body of a linebacker, all lean muscle.
He actually worked through his undergrad degree on a sports scholarship before getting into medical school.
His brains and brawn should have been the perfect combination for me, but we’d only ever been friends. I couldn’t see him any other way.
Joseph, on the other hand, had asked me out two years ago, and I’d refused.
He was a gorgeously fit Black man with sharp features, a sexy fade, short haircut, and dark soul-sucking eyes that generally made women fall over themselves for a date with him.
His tight tees showed off his abs, and he wasn’t shy about putting his other muscles on display.
Unfortunately for me, I enjoyed teasing him about his sexual prowess more than I was interested in being one of his conquests.
Last summer, the three of us and another school friend, Jennifer, volunteered for the same outreach program.
We’d spent almost every waking moment together.
This year, Joseph and Marc volunteered in clinics, while Jennifer found a short-term internship at a lab.
Instead of joining them, I took the summer off, knowing Renzo was getting out of prison.
This was the first time we’d seen each other all summer.
“So how have you both been?”
Joseph, of course, gave me a rundown of the clinic’s hottest nurses and medical assistants, including the administrative assistant he was currently sleeping with.
Big eyeroll there. Marc, instead, dumped information on the best cases he’d seen so far—much more interesting.
Neither had any good gossip to share, which made Jennifer’s absence all the more noticeable.
“And you?” Marc asked. “We’ve barely heard from you.”
“Yeah, I’ve been missing your elbow jabs when I win over a woman you failed to warn away.” That had become Joseph’s and my game. He chose a woman to seduce. I bet he couldn’t, then actively worked to show her how wrong he was for her. It was sad how often I lost our little game.
“Aw, you bored without me?” I teased.
“Don’t answer if you know what’s good for you.” The growled words came from directly behind me.
I turned in my seat, disbelieving. It really was Renzo. He stood there straight as a board, chest puffed, fists clenched at his sides, all suited up. A line was furrowed between his brows, his green eyes dark and foreboding.
“Hey, buddy, you’ve got the wrong table.” Joseph waved him off.
“Do I?” With the aggression pulsating from Renzo in waves, it was a miracle he hadn’t drawn his gun from his holster or slipped out the knife I knew he hid up his sleeve.
Eyes throughout the café were flicking our way.
“Renzo, this isn’t the time. I’m with friends. We’ll talk later.”
“We’ll talk now, Ainsley.”
The gravelly demand sent my body into a frenzy, my pussy clenching on nothing but air. My skin prickled, yearning for his touch. It was annoying how easily he drew me in with just a few words. He didn’t get to show up now, after I’d been waiting for him for the last four days.
“Leave,” I told him. “Now.”
“Anzy, who is this guy?” Marc pushed up his glasses.
“I’m the man in her life.”
I scoffed. “Are you?”
“Hey Bozo, she obviously doesn’t want you here.” Joseph pushed up from his seat. Build-wise, he matched Renzo, but he lacked a few inches in height and Renzo’s “I’ll gut you” aura.
“You want to challenge me?”
My chair screeched as I rushed between Joseph and Renzo, each looking on the verge of bulldozing our table. I pressed an open palm to Renzo’s chest and raised my head to look at him. Those crazed eyes fixed on me.
“Renzo, they’re my friends. Just friends, really. That’s all.” That didn’t seem to calm him one bit, not when his eyes focused back over my head, not with his teeth grating against each other, and not with the way his hand clutched my wrist tight against him.
“You’re leaving with me. Right now. No arguments.”
I nodded. “Okay.” It was probably for the best. “Guys, I’ve got to go. Have another latte or a slice of cake on me. We’ll catch up another time.”
“Anzy, you don’t—” Marc tried.
“I do.”
I picked up my purse, tossed a twenty on the table, and waved off my friends.
I winced at the looks of shock they gave me as Renzo practically hauled me out of the coffee shop by my wrist. Giving in wasn’t like me, and they knew that.
I’d always been as stubborn as they came, and I could already tell this was going to take some serious explaining.
Renzo didn’t even seem to understand the shitstorm his caveman attitude was creating for me, as he dragged me down the sidewalk to his car.
I ripped my hand away as the doors beeped unlocked. “Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?”
“Get in.” I crossed my arms, my hip thrust out, as he circled the car to the driver’s side. “Get in right now, or I'll go back in there. You won’t like what happens.”
I seethed under my breath. “Fine.”
We both got into the car, and I slammed the passenger door shut.
“I’m here. You happy now?”
“Not even close.”